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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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 Posted: Wed May 28, 2014 3:05 am Post subject: Easiest and most difficult languages to learn? |
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If you're thinking about taking up Mandarin, you better have 2,200 hours to spare.
The Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State compiled learning expectations for native English speakers looking to achieve speaking and reading proficiency in a number of different foreign languages, based on factors including the complexity of the language, resources available, how many hours devoted to study each week, and student motivation.
Voxy.com put together this nifty infographic (via The Cultureist), broken down into easy, medium and hard language categories.
The easiest languages — including Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian — require just 23-24 weeks of study, or 575-600 class hours, to achieve proficiency, and are the easiest because of their closeness to English.
The most difficult languages — Arabic, Chinese, Korean and Japanese — require, on average, 1.69 years (88 weeks), or 2,200 class hours, to reach speaking and reading proficiency.
Each of the four "hard" languages is difficult for its own reasons. Arabic's lack of vowels makes reading difficult for an English-speaking native, while Japanese and Chinese require the memorization of over a thousand unique characters.
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2014 3:09 am Post subject: |
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| It's interesting that of the four, three are increased in difficulty due to their writing systems, while one is in the top category despite having what is one of the most easily learned writing systems in the world. |
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SeoulNate
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
Location: Hyehwa
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2014 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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Funny thing about that is that usually EFL/ESL texts detail that English takes longer than that on average.
Anyway, these things have to be taken with a grain of salt because of a few things:
1. classroom hours are deceptive. You can be in a class and not actually learning anything. These need to be 2k+ hours of being ACTIVE with the language.
2. Motivation is probably a better determination than time.
Also, no way fluency is happening in a year and a half. That is 25 class hours a week. It is incredibly difficult to actually make sense of, and incorporate that much new material into your inter-language. |
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KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2014 7:58 pm Post subject: |
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Where is German on this list? I've been thinking of studying but hear it is crazy hard.
I actually didn't think Mandarin was that hard, the tones are fun. |
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nate1983
Joined: 30 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2014 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| It's interesting that of the four, three are increased in difficulty due to their writing systems, while one is in the top category despite having what is one of the most easily learned writing systems in the world. |
Wait, what? I'm confused...both Arabic and Korean are super easy to learn to write, while Chinese and Japanese are incredibly difficult - am I missing something? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2014 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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| nate1983 wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| It's interesting that of the four, three are increased in difficulty due to their writing systems, while one is in the top category despite having what is one of the most easily learned writing systems in the world. |
Wait, what? I'm confused...both Arabic and Korean are super easy to learn to write, while Chinese and Japanese are incredibly difficult - am I missing something? |
Well, I don't know Arabic, but his article suggests Arabic is somewhat difficult for English speakers to learn to read. The Arabic writing system being "super easy" seems questionable, though it's obviously easier than Chinese or Japanese. |
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nate1983
Joined: 30 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2014 8:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| nate1983 wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| It's interesting that of the four, three are increased in difficulty due to their writing systems, while one is in the top category despite having what is one of the most easily learned writing systems in the world. |
Wait, what? I'm confused...both Arabic and Korean are super easy to learn to write, while Chinese and Japanese are incredibly difficult - am I missing something? |
Well, I don't know Arabic, but his article suggests Arabic is somewhat difficult for English speakers to learn to read. The Arabic writing system being "super easy" seems questionable, though it's obviously easier than Chinese or Japanese. |
Well, I would say that Korean writing is probably about the same or slightly easier than English (for an alien from outer space), and I would put Arabic in the same category.
I think anyone who has a good command of Arabic (I don't, only studied the basics) would find the lack of vowels similar in difficulty to using 존댓말 in Korean. Isn't Hebrew the same? |
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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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| Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 1:27 am Post subject: |
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| nate1983 wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| It's interesting that of the four, three are increased in difficulty due to their writing systems, while one is in the top category despite having what is one of the most easily learned writing systems in the world. |
Wait, what? I'm confused...both Arabic and Korean are super easy to learn to write, while Chinese and Japanese are incredibly difficult - am I missing something? |
I am not sure Arabic is super easy to learn to write as each letter has an initial, middle and final form. That and you have to learn how each form of each letter connects with each form of each letter that precedes and follows it.
Plus MSA doesn't include the vowel markers making it very difficult to read without a lot of practice. |
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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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| Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 1:41 am Post subject: |
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It is really difficult to define what is a hard language to learn for an English speaker as each language is comprised of many parts.
For example, speaking Mandarin is in many ways much simpler than speaking French once you have a rudimentary grasp of the tones. However, reading French is far, far easier than trying to read any of the languages that make up Chinese.
In the same way learning hangeul might not be that difficult, but actually being able to write in Korean is a lot tougher. Whilst in Mandarin it is comparatively easier to be able to write knowing fewer words than someone trying to do the same in Korean. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 5:51 am Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
| nate1983 wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| It's interesting that of the four, three are increased in difficulty due to their writing systems, while one is in the top category despite having what is one of the most easily learned writing systems in the world. |
Wait, what? I'm confused...both Arabic and Korean are super easy to learn to write, while Chinese and Japanese are incredibly difficult - am I missing something? |
I am not sure Arabic is super easy to learn to write as each letter has an initial, middle and final form. That and you have to learn how each form of each letter connects with each form of each letter that precedes and follows it.
Plus MSA doesn't include the vowel markers making it very difficult to read without a lot of practice. |
Exactly. The Arabic script isn't too difficult to learn (might take a few hours more of study than korean requires), but reading is a pain in the ass (unless you're reading something like the koran, which has vowel markers).
Also, even if you spend hours upon hours in the classroom learning Modern Standard Arabic, it won't do you much good in a country like Morocco, which speaks a dialect very different from MSA. |
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le-paul
Joined: 07 Apr 2009
Location: dans la chambre
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| Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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| KimchiNinja wrote: |
Where is German on this list? I've been thinking of studying but hear it is crazy hard.
I actually didn't think Mandarin was that hard, the tones are fun. |
I wondered that, too. Considering English is to a large extent Anglo Saxon in origin, youd have thought it was here...?
Anyway, German isnt too bad to learn if you can figure out which English words are Germanic and which are Romantic - you already have a large vocabulary at your disposal with which to start.
And I dint find Mandarin all that hard either, if you take away the characters and replace it with pin-yin. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri May 30, 2014 3:46 am Post subject: |
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| nate1983 wrote: |
I think anyone who has a good command of Arabic (I don't, only studied the basics) would find the lack of vowels similar in difficulty to using 존댓말 in Korean. |
I'm sure that anyone who has a good command of Arabic will be able to read Arabic without a problem. We learn languages, though, precisely because we don't already have a good command of them. Someone learning Korean will be immensely aided by the simplicity and clarity of Hangeul. I suspect (but am not certain, having never done it myself) that someone learning Arabic will be hindered, rather than helped, by Arabic's writing system. Omitting information tends to reduce rather than increase clarity, and vowels are a huge part of the information in a written word. |
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ETA
Joined: 15 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Fri May 30, 2014 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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| KimchiNinja wrote: |
Where is German on this list? I've been thinking of studying but hear it is crazy hard.
I actually didn't think Mandarin was that hard, the tones are fun. |
German was much easier to learn than Spanish for me and Spanish is considered to be the easiest lang for native English speakers to learn. Germanic vocab is more similar to English.
Shoes...
German: Schuhe
Spanish: Zapatos
An English speaker's brain can more easily relate to German vocab than Spanish. |
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EZE
Joined: 05 May 2012
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| Posted: Fri May 30, 2014 8:39 pm Post subject: |
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| For me, Spanish is a lot easier than German. Separable prefix verbs, three noun genders, and the complexity of articles in the dative and accusative are a few things that make German considerably more difficult than Spanish for me. But German is a cakewalk compared to any Asian language. |
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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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| Posted: Sat May 31, 2014 8:10 am Post subject: |
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| ETA wrote: |
| KimchiNinja wrote: |
Where is German on this list? I've been thinking of studying but hear it is crazy hard.
I actually didn't think Mandarin was that hard, the tones are fun. |
German was much easier to learn than Spanish for me and Spanish is considered to be the easiest lang for native English speakers to learn. Germanic vocab is more similar to English.
Shoes...
German: Schuhe
Spanish: Zapatos
An English speaker's brain can more easily relate to German vocab than Spanish. |
Everyone is different of course, but I would say that the Romance languages are a tad easier for an English speaker than German.
English is a Germanic language, but thanks to the Norman conquest English contains thousands of cognates with French and Spanish. Also German declension means that English shares more similarities with French and Spanish when it comes to word order.
As French was the language of the elite and government in England for over three centuries, many high register English words come from French. Just open Le Monde or El Pais and click on the headline article to see how even without any background in French or Spanish you can kind of get the gist of what they are saying.
You cant really do the same with Bild, at least in my experience. |
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